Online Poker: The Top 7 Most Important Events of 2025

World Record for Traffic

Rumor that online poker "has two years left" has been circulating for years. While we certainly don't deny the industry faces its fair share of challenges, it's clearly premature to talk about its imminent demise.

GGPoker, the leader in modern online poker, set a record for the most simultaneous connections in 2025. Late in the evening of September 7, the client counter showed 600,686 players online.

The former industry leader PokerStars, with a comparable market share, set a record of 307,000 simultaneous connections in 2009.

New iPoker Client

iPoker has managed to establish itself in the global top 5 in recent years, yet the network's skins were forced to use an app that hadn't been updated globally for about 10 years.

In 2025, almost all iPoker poker rooms switched to the new client. The app interface was completely redesigned: the graphics, fonts, and buttons now feature a modern design, bright colors, and a more eye-pleasing layout.

Players can now resize the client window. The addition of a macOS version was a huge plus.

To be fair, the update wasn't perfect. RedStar was forced to temporarily roll back to the old version due to numerous bugs. However, all iPoker poker rooms will eventually switch to the updated client, which is visually noticeably superior to the old one.

Ben Rolle Wins the WSOP Online Main Event

Despite 600,000 simultaneous connections, GGPoker failed to attract a record number of entries to the year's premier online tournament in September 2025.

The WSOP Online Main Event was only the third most popular in history, although the prize pool difference with the 2020 event was less than one buy-in, and with last year's record-breaking tournament, less than $100,000.

The largest payout of the year, $3,900,707, was taken by Ben "Bencb" Rolle from the WSOP Online Main Event. The German player more than tripled his best cash.

Interestingly, there was not a single "random" player at the final table this time — the entire top nine was regulars.

The First AI Poker Battle

Artificial intelligence is increasingly permeating all aspects of life, and poker is no exception. Modern models are already being actively used in poker software development.

In 2025, the PokerBattle.ai project hosted the first-ever poker battle of modern language models. OpenAI o3 showed the best result among nine participants, winning approximately $37,000 in 3,799 hands.

Obviously, this was a lab experiment, and the models demonstrated the level of advanced amateurs. However, AI is advancing rapidly.

In 2026, a battle between Grok and Phil Galfond is quite possible. The results of such a match will allow us to draw conclusions about the readiness of language models to compete against professional players.

BetOnline Loyalty & Rewards Program

BetOnline hasn't been afraid to experiment with its bonus system in recent years. Last year, the poker room launched its first loyalty program, but the experiment wasn't extended beyond 2025.

On November 28, BetOnline Poker launched its Loyalty & Rewards Program, linked to the general loyalty program for casino and sports betting players.

Poker players now receive 10% rakeback (our players receive additional rakeback through a separate VIP deal). Up to 30% rakeback under the new program is only available for simultaneous casino or sports betting and leveling up.

Such an integration of bonuses across different gaming products is a first of its kind. While regular players won't be turning to slots for higher rakeback, BetOnline's recreational players now have the opportunity to earn additional profits without limiting their game selection.

American Expansion of CoinPoker

In 2025, CoinPoker demonstrated a clear focus on the US market. Although the poker room hasn't officially announced this strategy, a conclusion can be drawn from the following facts.

Over the course of the year, Team CoinPoker added five players, all of whom are US citizens:

1. Ryan DePaulo
2. John "apestyles" Van Fleet
3. Nikhil "Nik Airball" Arcot
4. Corey Eyring
5. Frank "Frankie C" Cucchiara

As a reminder, six players were included into Team Pro in 2024 included: five Europeans and one Brazilian.

We anticipate that this approach could allow CoinPoker to become one of the top three poker rooms accepting US players.

The Horizon Network has closed

And one last piece of news for old-school players who remember online poker 15 years ago.

The skins of the Horizon network (Everygame and Juicy Stakes) announced their closure to players on November 30th.

As a reminder, Everygame Poker launched in 2003 and operated under the Intertops brand until 2021. The poker room belonged to one of the oldest online bookmakers, operating since 1996. Juicy Stakes opened six years later.

Both sites were long part of the Cake network, and after its demise, they not only paid their players in full but also continued to operate, supporting the Cake 2.0 client. RedStar Poker also launched on the same network.

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